# BinarEye: An Always-On Energy-Accuracy-Scalable Binary CNN Processor With All Memory On Chip in 28nm CMOS

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.05554 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.05554/

## Key facts

- Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 16 Apr 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 10 of 10)

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- [The Synergy of Complex Event Processing and Tiny Machine Learning in Industrial IoT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.03371/) (2021)
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- [Learnable Heterogeneous Convolution: Learning both topology and strength](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.05440/) (2023)
- [AI Compute Architecture and Evolution Trends](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.21394/) (2025)
- [A Construction Kit for Efficient Low Power Neural Network Accelerator Designs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12810/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper introduces BinarEye: a digital processor for always-on Binary Convolutional Neural Networks. The chip maximizes data reuse through a Neuron Array exploiting local weight Flip-Flops. It stores full network models and feature maps and hence requires no off-chip bandwidth, which leads to a 230 1b-TOPS/W peak efficiency. Its 3 levels of flexibility - (a) weight reconfiguration, (b) a programmable network depth and (c) a programmable network width - allow trading energy for accuracy depending on the task's requirements. BinarEye's full system input-to-label energy consumption ranges from 14.4uJ/f for 86% CIFAR-10 and 98% owner recognition down to 0.92uJ/f for 94% face detection at up to 1700 frames per second. This is 3-12-70x more efficient than the state-of-the-art at on-par accuracy.
